


you'll come back, when it's over

by thekeybladeschosen



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, all platonic tho, give me the forbidden interaction!!!, kairi RIGHTS, kh3 remind spoilers ahead, riku is soft, sora is mentioned but is Not Here, sorikai if you squint, tell ur friends u love them jerks, they can work through some trauma lowkey as a treat, uhhhhh let rikai talk Nomura!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:48:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23114203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekeybladeschosen/pseuds/thekeybladeschosen
Summary: "no need to say goodbye."Kairi's made a decision. Her first one, maybe.Riku isn't exactly happy.definite re:mind spoilers.
Relationships: Kairi & Riku & Sora (Kingdom Hearts), Kairi & Riku (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	you'll come back, when it's over

**Author's Note:**

> uhhh i havent written anything in a LONG time and def havent published anything either (who am i, even) but in the end of February i started typing up a riku and kairi drabble in my phone notes and 4k words later its done.
> 
> which reminds me formatting might be a little weird.  
> also what is proper capitalization or punctuation, even. half of this was written when i was supposed to be WORKING
> 
> oops.
> 
> i say riku and kairi can talk things out little a bit. as a treat.
> 
> shoutout to the kairi discord for supporting me, ily nerds.

Radiant Garden is barely home to her, this part of it even less so.  
Kairi was raised here, sort of, if living here for a measly four years of her life counts for anything. Arriving here was sort of like coming home, but it'd felt more comforting when she and-  
when they had been here together, briefly.  
But still, coming back to this castle had felt sort of familiar, but the lab certainly doesn't hold any nostalgia for her. It isn't like as a toddler she spent any time down in the rooms under the castle. 

That isn't the only unfamiliar thing. It's been noisy in the lab in a way Kairi isn't accustomed to, so different from the sounds of their islands or even any other worlds she's visited. A seemingly constant stream of quiet chatter, the scratching of a pen on paper, furious typing into a computer surrounds her here.

Ienzo's voice sometimes rises to fill the room and everything else seems to halt, because the youngest of this group doesn't speak often but when he does, people listen.

she wonders what that's like.

she'd only come to him with her idea recently but he'd worked tirelessly since then if the bags under his eyes are any indication, but it was ready now.  
Today's the day.  
it's here, and she's picking at her beaded bracelets on her wrist nervously from her perch on the lab bed.  
she's scared, just a little. but that's nothing new. fear isn't unfamiliar to the princess of heart.

it's just Ienzo, her, and Riku right now, and her friend has been staring at the floor for a few minutes.  
He finally speaks up as Ienzo ducks out of the room to confer with Even, who avoids Riku like the plague, and collect the medication that will lull her into her sleep.

"you know... I was so jealous and angry and insecure...and it was my fault we all had to leave home. I hate that I caused all of this."

Riku's voice rings through the room, demanding attention, and she has a weird reminder of when they were little kids and he had a growth spurt and shot up taller, larger than life.  
He carries so much power in him. He always has. She wonders if he even realizes the effect he can have. There's a reason they always followed where he would lead. 

this definitely isn't where she'd thought their conversation would go. She wasnt even sure they'd have one, really.  
mostly she'd assumed he would try to talk her out of this but this is so Riku, to shoulder the blame and the hurt and take it all on himself.  
"no one blamed you." comes her soft reply, immediate. she doesn't hesitate, doesn't falter. 

but he does. He's had so many more hardships than she has, and she doesn't fault him for a single one of them. Never has.  
"well, I did." he's saying, as she knew he would and she focuses on his pinched expression, wondering absently if he'd let her reach out and smooth the creases from his head, if he'd lean into her touch like he used to. She's always wanted to relieve him of his burdens, but he's never confided in her like this before.

"we would've left home anyway, Ri." and they would have. Riku didn't set them on this path, he wasn't why they'd ended here.  
Maybe they'd never had a choice at all.

but he just sighs, shaking his head as Ienzo comes back, setting up an IV and preparing Kairi to go under. 

The keyblade master watches this intently and wonders how they got here, sitting in this lab only a few weeks after the battle with xehanort, after kairi had been taken and killed in front of them (which is still so horrible to think about) but then, thankfully, returned to them.

except that when she came back, it was at the cost of losing sora.

it'd been an exhausting few weeks, and they haven't really had much down time since that day on the beach. or since their first battles with xemnas. or in the last year at all, really.

riku can't actually remember the last time he's had down time. it's been move move move, go go keep going for well over a year.

the last time it was just the two of them was that day on the beach, when kairi had broken down in his arms.  
he'd rushed to her the second it happened, watching sora disappear as if in slow motion and his feet moving on their own. something was very wrong, so so so so wrong and he'd KNOWN something terrible was going to happen why did he let sora leave-

as he'd made it to the paopu tree and kairi had turned to him, eyes darker than the depths of the ocean she was named for and spilling over with tears, the sun setting behind her in a way that felt so final, his heart shattered in so many ways he didn't know if it could ever be put back together.

Riku had reached for her immediately, too numb with horror to even be grateful in the moment to see her in one piece again, here and breathing and alive, as she broke down into hoarse screaming and sobbing, asking why he'd let sora come for her, begging the worlds to give him back.

he'd been unsure how to answer or what could even be said, unsure why he hadn't insisted sora take him too, unsure why it had to be this way so he'd just held her, failing to hold back his own tears as the sun sank below the horizon around them, coating the island in night.

hadn't it? or had it just been the hopeful light inside him diminishing that made him believe so? had the stars even come out? he can't remember now.

he knows that the others eventually approached them, took them to a place to rest, and began to plan. but its all fuzzy, and they haven't really been on their own at all since.

maybe they've intentionally kept it that way.  
there is a hole in their lives right now, a sora shaped loss in their hearts, and neither knows how to approach it.

yet now they're here in this building because her mind is made up and there's no where else he'd rather be at present than with her, because she'd pitched the thought to him and Naminé first and he'd instantly felt his blood run cold while Naminé had been thoughtful and deliberated silently for a moment before saying it was worth a shot.  
"trace the connection."

so he's here, but he hates this.

Riku is so scared. maybe that's why this hurt is coming to the surface.  
Ienzo leaves again and he can't stop himself.

"you don't have to pretend with me. he's not here to see it."  
the first real conversation they've had between just the two of them since before the battle and it's turning into this, and he wishes he wasn't taking it there, but he can't help it. he can't stop the words from coming out.

her eyebrows furrow together, blue eyes darkening. it could be the response to whatever icy concoction is now flowing into her veins, the steady sound of the IV that'll be causing her to slip into sleep soon the only sound in the room.

he's seized with the want to unhook it, to throw it across the room, to take her away from here.  
the idea of sleep is one he's still vehemently opposed to, much to no one's shock.

the silence hasn't gone on that long, but he's realizing her expression is more likely a response to what he said, and he casts his eyes at the floor again.  
"Riku, what-"  
"he's not here to witness it so we don't have to pretend, kairi." he grits out through clenched teeth.

is she his friend, actually? he wants her to be, but he wonders. he wonders if she's still afraid of him like he knows she once was, he wonders if her giggles and "you sound like sora" are fake, an action she thinks she has to take to try to repair something he damaged.  
he wonders most of all if she really does blame him but just doesn't want to say it.

"I've never pretended with you." she sighs.  
Kairi's voice never used to be this soft. When did she become so quiet? what happened to the rambunctious girl who teased him and sora all the time?  
did he ruin that along with their home?

he feels he's atoned for this already, but has he? some wounds never heal, and without his best friend here he's questioning everything again, all the doubts rising back to the surface. never quite healed, just buried deep below.

"Not even once. How dare you suggest I don't love you."  
some of her old fire is resonant in those words and shocked, he glances back up. love was not the word he expected at all.

he loves her. he does, he does. how can he not?

but she has no reason to care for him outside of obligation to sora, or at least that's what he's told himself for the last few months.  
or has it been since castle oblivion that he's believed this? has he questioned, doubted, feared for his place in her heart for that long? 

the redhead should be falling into sleep soon, and maybe her posture is more relaxed now, but her eyes are wide awake, alert and filled with an emotion he can't identify.  
he's never been as good at reading people as sora is, has never cared much for it.  
has always feared what they thought of him.

"I've always cared just as much about you as I do for him, Riku. how dare you question my feelings. Even when..." her breath hitches, and maybe he actually doesn't want to hear this but its too late and he knows that he needs to.

"Even when you scared me. even when your darkness rose, I cared just as much for you still.  
He was so warm and open and I was so afraid, Riku. I was a kid too, you know? and i lost everything. everything I'd ever had and i couldn't even remember what I'd lost but i could feel it!

i know I clung to him and i know i probably messed things up. I've spent a lot of time thinking about how, maybe my arrival ruined everything. you don't have to tell me - I know I'm at fault for your pain." She sniffles, and Riku scoots his chair closer.

"Kairi..."  
She shakes her head, and he gets the message she's sending to let her finish. he shuts his mouth.

she's fighting so hard to articulate her words as she watches riku watch her, his green eyes so sad, and she's so... angry.  
has she been this mad before? she honestly doesn't know. most recently she's been sad, she's been afraid, she's been hurt.

but before that? before the worlds fell, before xemnas and xehanort and all this pain? it's hard to remember a time before that, though she'd had such a good childhood since coming to the islands.  
that's right...  
she's been overjoyed, and content, and happy, and filled with doubts. so many doubts... but she never really needed anger until recently.

and Kairi knows anger, even though Axel has teased her about her light and how she must not know anything but positive thoughts. 

she was angry when saix locked her away as bait for sora, and maybe she still holds a weak flicker of a grudge towards isa.  
she was angry she was weak, but that doesn't hold a candle to this.

she was angry during the events of the war and poised to strike, to do something, to make them hurt like they'd hurt her friends, anything to fight back against these people who ruined so much for so many innocents.

but this? this is different. this is different because she isn't just angry, she's hurt. riku is so important to her and she knows he has doubts and fears and anger too, and she hates that she's thought for a long time that she must be at the root of it, and she's angry because she knows he has every right to feel that way but she wishes he'd stop swallowing his feelings because he's afraid of her, or of what she feels.

"I know you think I don't care about you but you're WRONG." she bites out, watching riku's face change, struck, his eyes widening and then going soft. she wonders what he sees in her face. 

"I know back then you thought it was just him for me, and you felt you didn't fit with us, and I'm so sorry for that...but Riku...you're you. you have something no one else has. You're you and I always knew you'd come back to us, even if you needed space or time and...and even when you were gone. And how could you ever say - who do you- I don't think its-" she's gasping now, but he doesn't dare interrupt her, and she's losing her anger in place of frustration and so much sadness and not enough ways to say what she wants to.

"Neither of us ever wanted you gone. he didn't. I don't. Please never think- I can't-" she clears her throat, attempting to dislodge the lump there. kairi's an easy crier, out of joy or frustration, and right now she hates it. it feels like weakness too, and she is so tired of being weak.

"i do want you here. i've always wanted you here. i didn't want either of you to come back without the other, because it wouldnt have been right. I sat on that island for a year wondering if it was my fault you were gone, did you know that?"

He didn't.

"it never would've been home without you there. my life isn't complete if you aren't in it, and that's because i need you too. Please." her voice is shaking now, the tears freely streaming down her face.

Riku's heart is throbbing, and he reaches out his hand, hoping she'll take it. he needs her to ground him.

Her much smaller, very pale hand settles in his, her skin warm to the touch.  
"Kai...I'm sorry."

Kairi wants to scoff, or maybe laugh despite the lack of humor here. he's sorry. of course he is. he never stops berating himself.

"don't be. you're always sorry even when you don't need to be. you have nothing to apologize for."  
he chuckles darkly, and she ignores it.

"Riku, don't hold this against me, please. don't think I'm choosing to leave you, that I chose this to get away or because i don't want to be around you. i love you so much riku, but I'm just...so tired."  
Her blue eyes are still overflowing with tears, bottom lip quivering.

He understands, he does. He knows. Because he'd watched Sora sleep for a year and he'd been unable to face her, unable to come home to her blank face or worse, the guilt he now knows she'd carried about his departure and the lingering thought of Sora that she shouldn't have had. that year had been so tiring, so hard but he'd made his choice, and he doesn't regret it.

for the first time he really realizes, and now knows she was never given one. this might be one of the first choices she's been actively allowed to make, after agreeing to be trained with her keyblade.

he's swimming in the revelations that she cares for him as he regrets doubting her, remembering how she'd known his heart while his exterior had changed, how she's always been there asking him to come home. 

part of him wishes when they'd gone home that they'd just stayed there. 

they've all been through so much and Riku wishes it could stop, that the three of them could lay in the sand under the trees, sun shining through the leaves and the smell of salt in the air as they laugh and talk and nap the lazy days away. childhood seems so far behind them now, and none of them are even eighteen. 

He's so tired too. they're too young to have had this all put on their shoulders.

Ienzo comes in, his body language awkward as he checks a few things, gives Kairi a nod, and ducks back out again, saving both of them a few minutes to compose themselves.

"I still don't like this." he says, again, automatically as the door closes behind the scientist.  
Kairi giggles, but there's no humor in it. "I know. I don't either. But I don't know what else to do." the defeated tone in her voice is so hard to hear.

It's been so hard. They'd set out together at first, her watching the islands disappear behind them as he drove the gummi ship.  
She stayed with the twilight town gang while he saw off Master Aqua, Terra, and Ven to the realm of darkness.

He'd traveled through a couple worlds while she'd avoided home and stewing in sadness by helping search with friendly faces until being around the others started to hurt.

The last straw for her had been when she'd heard Roxas and Xion laughing, allowing themselves to forget in that moment, and all she could hear were echoes of Sora.

Kairi had cried that night, worrying she'd stopped seeing them as their own people and begun to see them as extensions of him, and they deserved better than that.

So, she had to leave.  
This was her last resort, and she wanted to believe she would find something.

But this much time had passed and none of them had, and she wasn't even that secure in this idea, but she wanted to try.

Mostly she wanted to not think anymore.

"Ri, I'm so... tired. I didn't ask for this. I didn't choose it. I've had to watch him disappear twice because of me. he never gave me a choice...no one does." she started out strong, but her voice is breaking off at the end.

He knows. she knows he does.  
he knows and that's why he has to let her do this even if he doesn't want to, no matter how much he hates it.

"i know how easy the time passes by and I'm scared to lose you for that long." he whispers.  
there are other things he wants to say too, threads of words he should be stringing together in response to everything she's thrown his way, but it mostly boils down to this fear.

she smiles, sadly. she knows, she must. "we'll be together always, riku. you're never going to lose me and this will be over in no time, you'll see."

sora had said something that felt similar.  
'we'll both be back before you know it.'  
but he had known it.  
his fist clenches, remembering.  
the whole time sora had been gone to bring kairi home, he'd felt the loss. the pain. the fear.  
the people he loves most are so cavalier about sacrifice and he hurts so much for it, but he can't even be angry at them.

Kairi has paused for so long that Riku assumes she's been whisked into sleep, and he's staring at their hands joined together and lamenting not returning her words of love, eyes fixed on the way his hand dwarfs hers, so tiny and mostly unmarked in his large scarred one.  
and then she adds, almost an afterthought, voice tiny in the room that feels so big currently, "i wish he had just let me go... then he'd be here."

Riku gasps, choking on air and looks up to her.  
her big blue eyes are drooping now, lashes fluttering as she fights to stay awake, her lip still shaking.  
"Kairi...he wouldn't ever have done that."  
sora wouldn't. never. even if it hadn't been kairi, he'd never have been able to rest knowing someone was hurting and lost, all alone.

it being her though had meant that the stakes were higher, and that he'd truly never give up in a way he may not have been quite as happily willing to do for anyone else. sora has sacrificed himself for kairi twice now, and the fact it's bothered her for so long now bothers him too.  
the idiot. the self sacrificing dummy.  
he's gonna chew him out when they get him back.

"Would you have?" she asks, sleepily, but he hears the remaining sadness underneath.  
Riku is hurt she has to ask, but he understands the fear there. She'd lost first her original home, then the islands, and then been left at home for a year with no answers.  
Her fears of being left behind are so valid, and he just accused her of pretending.

if he thought maybe she'd drifted from him, what must she think he sees her as? he hasn't prioritized her in any way in well over a year. 

he'd never do that to her again. If they got-  
no. When they got Sora back, the three of them were going home. together. she'd never have to cry about this again.

He climbs into the sterile bed next to her, careful not to disturb the IV, and she turns to face him, curling against his chest.

It was almost like the old days before the island fell, if he didn't think about how very wrong it was that Sora wasn't curled against his other side the way they'd always slept during their sleepovers, if he imagined the sound of waves instead of the sounds of the lab.

a ghost of a smile finds his face as he remembers that even though they usually rotated who slept in the middle ("because thats how to be fair!" sora's younger voice echoes in his head), mostly they always found themselves waking with him somehow in the midst of their tangled limbs and blankets no matter who'd fallen asleep in the middle to begin with.  
he wonders why, sometimes, why the two of them had always seemed to surround him, but it was just so nice to be needed. to be the center of attention.  
to have these two people he loved cling to him, finding comfort in his presence.

"I'd never have left you, Kai. I'd have come for you too if he'd let me." he says shakily.  
and he would have. he didnt want sora to go alone, not just because he was afraid to lose them both, but due to wanting to help. 

They all belonged together.  
He's always known that, ever since that day on the islands as darkness descended and the sky rained down around them, when he'd been promised other worlds and his first thought had been to ask Ansem SOD if sora and kairi could come too. 

A small smile graces Kairi's lips, and he knows he doesn't have to say it, because she knows, she absolutely knows but he does anyway, because when is the next time he'll get to speak to her? how long will be she asleep, physically here but so far away in her dreams?  
"i love you. be safe."

she's basically asleep by now, her breathing finally evening out, her tiny hand clutched in the fabric of his shirt tightly like he's anchoring her here.  
"mhm." she murmurs, nearly gone.  
"stay with me?" comes the whisper as she finally succumbs to sleep.

his eyes are the last thing she sees, bright green as a soft, albeit sad smile reaches them for the first time in months. she wants to carry that with her, their connection, its weight to ground her as they search her heart. the knowledge that he loves her too, that he isn't angry with her. that he knows now that she doesn't, has never even wanted to blame him.

she won't hear him, and it doesn't matter. he's not saying it just for her. he doesn't just say things he doesn't mean anymore.  
"of course. always."

and he will. he won't leave radiant garden until she wakes.  
he's dozing off too, absently wondering if they'll share a dream, if they'll see sora again in sleep.

strong arms around her in a snug embrace, his last waking thought is that no matter what, he will not leave her behind again.  
whatever answers they do or don't find, the two of them will bring sora home.  
together.


End file.
